Crafting Stories, Finding Readers And Selling Direct With Ines Johnson
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Joanna Penn
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2025
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Have you ever dreamed of turning a passion for storytelling into a profitable, long-term career? How do you build multiple successful author brands without burning out? What marketing strategies actually work in today's fast-changing industry? Ines Johnson shares her journey and the secrets to her success.
In the intro, 5 phases of an author business [Becca Syme]; Lessons from writing every day for two decades [Ryan Holiday]; What the First AI Copyright Ruling Means for Authors [ALLi Podcast];
Plus, Lichfield Cathedral; The Buried and the Drowned Short Story Collection; and 50% off all my JFPenn ebooks and audiobooks and digital bundles for July 25.
Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io
This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn
Ines Johnson is a romance author with over a hundred books spanning paranormal, urban fantasy, contemporary, and erotica, as well as sweet romance under another pen name.
You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Show Notes
* From funk band upbringing to TV, teaching and writing
* Writing faster as a trained screenwriter
* Staying within your lane — depending on your goals
* The business of writing, and planning income and progress
* AIDA for marketing — Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
* Kickstarter for PageTurner Planning
* Selling direct and the experience you bring to readers
* The joys of Romancelandia
You can find Ines at InesWrites.com or InesWrites.substack.com.
Transcript of Interview with Ines Johnson
Joanna: Ines Johnson is a romance author with over a hundred books spanning paranormal, urban fantasy, contemporary, and erotica, as well as sweet romance under another pen name. Welcome to the show, Ines.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, |
| 0:08.0 | bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing craft and creative business. |
| 0:14.7 | You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint, and lots more at thecreativepen.com. |
| 0:22.5 | And that's Penn with a double N. |
| 0:25.0 | And here's the show. |
| 0:26.4 | Hello, creatives. |
| 0:27.6 | I'm Joanna Penn, and this is episode number 818 of the podcast, and it is Saturday, |
| 0:33.2 | 5th of July, 2025 as I record this. |
| 0:37.1 | In today's show, I'm talking to Ines Johnson about how she found |
| 0:41.1 | her lane for writing and how finding success is a lot about deciding what your goals are, as well as |
| 0:47.5 | writing with pen names, selling in KU for some books and going wide for others, how selling direct |
| 0:53.5 | can give you more options on what you offer readers, |
| 0:56.5 | plus page turner planning, |
| 0:58.4 | lessons from doing a Kickstarter, |
| 1:00.4 | book marketing tips, |
| 1:01.7 | and all the fun you can have in Romancelandia. |
| 1:05.4 | So that's coming up in the interview section. |
| 1:11.4 | In writing and publishing things, |
| 1:14.0 | Becca Syme talks about the five phases of an author career. |
| 1:18.1 | And definitely have a listen to this or watch the YouTube video because I think it would |
| 1:21.8 | help a lot of people who think they're just going to write a book and hit the big |
| 1:25.8 | time straight away. So just a reality check on how long it takes in general. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Joanna Penn, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Joanna Penn and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.